Vice President Ma'ruf Amin: Government Sets Target For People's Palm Rejuvenation To Reach 54 Thousand Hectare In 2022

JAKARTA - Vice President (Vice President) Ma'ruf Amin said that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia was still able to score positive export growth in the agricultural sector. One of them is palm oil commodity. To that end, the government issued the People's Palm Oil Rejuvenation (PSR) program to increase the productivity of people's oil palm plantations.

Furthermore, Ma'ruf said that currently the productivity of smallholder oil palm plantations is still relatively low, only 3.7 tons per hectare per year. In fact, the potential that can be produced can reach eight tons per hectare, per year.

Apart from being a form of government siding with smallholders, said Ma'ruf, the rejuvenation of smallholder palm oil is also part of the National Economic Recovery (PEN) program which is able to absorb a lot of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ma'ruf said that in 2021 the People's Palm Oil Replanting program is targeted to target 180,000 hectares of land with an allocation of Rp 5.567 trillion.

"The target for oil palm rejuvenation is until 2022 on an area of 540,000 hectares," he said at the 'First Harvest of Palm Oil for the People's Palm Rejuvenation Program', Thursday, September 2.

To achieve this target, said Ma'ruf, the government and all stakeholders of the palm oil industry need to unite, work together, and collaborate. Close cooperation is needed by three parties in the context of sustainable palm oil management, namely the government, the private sector and the community.

Ma'ruf said, currently independent smallholders are the main actors in the oil palm plantation sector. Independent smallholders control almost half of Indonesia's oil palm plantations. Therefore, the government considers it important to give special attention to smallholder plantations, especially to further improve the welfare of farmers.

Ma'ruf said that in mid-2021 the Indonesian agricultural sector recorded an increase of 40.29 percent compared to the same period last year.

"In the period from January to June 2021, the value of agricultural exports reached Rp. 277.95 trillion, an increase of 40.29 percent compared to the same period in 2020," he said.

Ma'ruf said referring to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2020 agricultural exports reached Rp. ,5 trillion.

"This figure is up 13.6 percent compared to 2019," he said.